my thoughts

Think back about the last year of your life and try to recollect some important moments.Were you able to find many? or you don’t even remember what happened in the last year?. It can be ranging from you having a breakfast on a normal day to accomplishing a huge achievement in your life either personally or professionally. It’s hard to recollect without the aid of pictures or notes like a diary unless it had made a huge impact on you or some big occasion like your best friend’s wedding.

These recollectable moments or memories define your life and I feel one should strive to make as many of these as they can. Memories include the moment when you fell in love for the first time or the times you have spent with your crush in the high school or some silly things you have done to embarrass yourself during your childhood or the times you have played with your friends or the times when you made your parents proud or the time when you had to stay alone in your house. The list goes on and is different for each individual.

Life without memories doesn’t exist and i believe it’s the essence of life.

The Life long companion

Most of the things are not constant in your life, like money but the things you do with money can make memories for you. Helping a poor guy or going on a trip or saving it in the bank, it’s up to you, what you choose to do with it. You may not be living in the same place that you were 10 years back, but the times you have spent in that place are with you.

Memories are the ones that stay with you for life like a second shadow but a hidden one and hence I call it as a companion. They are buried with you and are the only friends when you are alone. You can relive the moments anytime and anywhere you want just by recollection.

The feeling

The feeling that comes with the recollection of these moments is indescribable, whether it’s a happy moment or a sad one. Nostalgia is the closest thing that comes to my mind.

The creation

Abnormal or rare events make the memories, a rare event like your wedding which doesn’t happen often or an abnormal event like you spent a night with out sleep playing a video game or studying hard for a test. Trying new things or willingness to do new things can help you make memories and the importance of trying new things, you can read about it from here.

Lets take a situation where you attend a party, your friends are dancing and ask you to do the same, it is better to say yes and dance, rather than sitting idle. Somewhere down the line, you might recall this moment and laugh about the day where you danced like crazy either by looking at party pictures or video captured by someone at the party. I believe these little things make the life beautiful and saying YES to things that don’t harm you is very good idea and a lot of good comes out of it (Now, i am remembering the time when i saw the movie “Yes man”).

The simple things that you can do are spend your weekends going to a friend’s place or going on a trip to a countryside where you don’t see the same mechanical life around you. Taking a different route to your office, trying a new breakfast or interacting with new people. Reading a book or writing a blog, learning to dance, sing or play a musical instrument. It takes only will to do all these things and take a step to make memories.

The recollection

We tend to forget a lot of moments, so, it’s very important to immediately treasure the moments that you would like to be remembered in the form of pictures, videos or diary. I developed a habit of taking pictures on every trip i go to and write a personal blog about even the minute details that took place on the trip. It helps me relive the every moment that i was able to pen down.

I can’t stress enough about the memories and so i end it with a simple but effective line..

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion

I find inertia everywhere in the human behaviour starting from waking up in the morning to laying down in the night. We resist to wake up trying to stay in the state of sleep and after you wake up, resistance starts again to stay in the awaken state. Laziness is another best example for it, you tend not to change your state, but once you start moving, you shift to a different state and continue doing it.

Inertia is a beautiful thing, if you understand , The point is that you just have to shift from one state to another to make things happen, and the amount of time you stay in a particular state defines the outcome of the results.

A typical employee starts his work from Monday morning, but his work really starts from may be in the afternoon, because of the employee being in a different state for the past 2 days, it’s difficult to get a move on. The faster he/she understands that it’s just a start that’s needed, he/she can get back to work faster, indicating that a preparation is needed to start the work immediately, because once you start, you are move in to a different state and Inertia takes care of the rest for you. Observe the same person after friday afternoon, he has already started making plans for the weekend, which indicates that he has moved to a different state faster, than closing work time. Here i believe interest have won over inertia, because, according to inertia , he should have been working with same efficiency till friday evening, but interest/passion made the person to move to a different state sooner and the work cycle continues.

Inertia can also be observed in stage performances, for eg. lets take singing, there are first few moments of nervousness, where singing first few lines can be hard, but once you do that, it’s as if you have been singing all along. It’s the transition that’s hard, and the sooner we get on and be ready, the easier it will be. The same point applies to a sportsman, getting a first feel, like winning a point in badminton or kicking the football first time in the match are always nervous/hard and requires extra attention and mental stability.

Coming back to laziness, there is another attribute to inertia, it’s the time you stay in the state. There is nothing wrong in taking rest, but if the rest continues to be for longer intervals, that’s when people tag you as lazy. It’s also important to understand how long to stay in the single state, you don’t want to work for longer hours or take rest for longer hours. The time is also defined by the priority lists in your life and if there any deadlines to accomplish tasks. Lets take a running race, if it’s a 100 m race, there is only 1 state , it’s to accelerate and keep on doing it until the goal is reached. In a marathon, there are different states, a perfect planning is required to move from one speed of running to another. Generally runners run slow at first, and depending on the distance from the goal, the runner increases the speed, it’s undeniably important to understand how long to stay in a particular speed. In the running race the time depends on the physical fitness of the runner and the distance of the race.

If you like something, you tend to do the same until you get bored, you can’t keep listening to the same song all day, or keep doing the same job for the life time, it is different from person to person and it’s up to the person to decide how long he/she wants to stay in a particular state. But, it’s important to understand that we shouldn’t stay in the same state for too long, trying new things is always exciting and gives a fresh start if required.

So, be ready to change your state and know exactly how long to stay in a particular state. Life becomes easier if you realise this simple thing. I end this with a simple well known proverb that sums up inertia in a single sentence.

The real satisfaction lies in becoming better each day only compared to your self.

Each individual is filled with so much information now-a-days ,he often forgets how did the previous day pass by. It is not as if they are doing something interesting each day, they go through the same boring routine , caught up in the midst of the expectations of the people around and the self interest in becoming the limelight of the society. I wonder if an average man in the world would ask the following question to himself , “are you satisfied by the way you lived today?”. I expect the chances to be bleak and even close to zero, and i expect the answer to be ‘no’ from all those unique people who tried to introspect them. So, the first question that might pop up in to your mind probably would be, should i even be asking such type of question to myself?, well ,then try asking this to yourself , “what do I live for?” , may be this might solve the problem for you.

So, what keeps you away from asking this question, the answer is simple, you just think about pleasing others. Looks like the life of an average individual goes through an ordeal to achieve some mere goals. I know we humans , by far the superior race in the world can achieve anything if focused, so why not focus on yourself, which will give you ultimate happiness. Don’t misunderstand me as if i am asking you to be selfish. Yes, be selfish to the extent that it hurts none, care about yourself rather than focusing all the god given energies on others. If its the social service that helps you being what you are, then be selfish and go help the poor or go help some one in need. If its the intellectual property that you cherish rather than the physical materials then be selfish and feed your eternal thirst by reading some awesome books.

I am just perplexed by the society the way it is now, with the exception to a few people, it has already drawn the life itinerary from the time they hear you have started breathing. It starts with your parents, they feed you with this constant input of the goals you need to achieve in order full fill your needs or may be your family needs. Thank god, at least my parents released me from their clutches once i joined my grad school. Its the phase after the parents that gets trickier , till now you were being controlled by 2 people, but now comes the stage where you are controlled by countless. You have to meet the expectations of a million eyes around you and did you ever act that you didn’t care what these eyes are craving for, you were right at that moment. Because these eyes are not going to pierce you , they can not do anything more than just peeping. so being busy for someone else cause? , i think there should be other purpose in your life which i have been talking about.

This may be a bit philosophical but you can’t deny that it is the truth. Recall some important moments in your life, ok then, now remember how many of them were the times when you were actually you. So this might help you in understanding ,how important it is to be you. Did you ever wonder why you did not have any regrets during your childhood? , because you were stubborn, questioning and more dominantly you were being you. What happened to this child inside you, when did you start becoming timid, easy going and submissive? Its at this place where you have lost yourself. After few years you regret for the actions you made, which could be easily avoided by being selfish.

ok, lets start some damage control by introspecting our daily life , make a note of all the activities that you do in the day, and also note those things that you would refrain from doing it if given a chance. There, were you left with any activity to do this day?

You are lucky if your day is still full and you can proudly say that you are the happiest man on the earth, no one can deny that.

If you have nothing left or a lot of time left in the day, you have been living a boring life so far, as far as you are concerned. So now fill the empty time with the activities that really excite you and may be worth doing. May be start with the first activity that pops up in to your mind, trust me this one will give you happiness.

ok, for those who can’t do what they please, at least spend some time in a day doing something that pleases you, you will gradually change.

People call it “Passion”, that is the word that has been missing in the current world. It’s the only thing that can make your day worth living. Don’t think of money or other things which in my opinion are necessary to continue your journey in this world, but they are secondary to your passions. You will find a way to live happy if you only think about yourself and what you care about.

ok, now, how many of you know exactly how you are going to be after 10 years? , and why can’t you predict your own life?, because its being driven by the other people, if you were to believe in yourself and din’t care about others, then you would be the same guy as you are now , even after 10 years, give it a thought, i may be right. You would be happy today, tomorrow , every day for your whole life, all you have to do is follow your heart. And one must be warned to clearly differentiate between obsession and passion. If you can’t inhibit your thoughts, you are probably obsessed with something. But passion is something that can wait. So ask your self if you are obsessed or motivated.

So if you can be happy each day, by happy i mean you loved the each activity in the day, that would make the world happier. So,